


Tea and Choices

by karakael



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:20:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karakael/pseuds/karakael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pema confides her worries to the Air Temple's most recent guest, and is surprised to find Amon far more sympathetic than anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea and Choices

There are many shrines on Air Temple Island. There is the big one in the main complex, the medium ones by the meditation outlook and the dining areas, and the tiny ones scattered all over forest and throughout the basements. 

It is to one of the latter that Amon goes, wincing as he limps as quietly as he can through the early-morning corridors. Early morning in a temple is far earlier than it is in the city; to avoid the commotion of morning prayers and chores he's had to awaken at the fourth strike of the clock.

Not that he's been able to sleep much in the first place. One does not seek sanctuary lightly, and the bruises and broken bones are only now beginning to heal. It makes sleep difficult and painful.

Light is just beginning to crest the horizon when he finally finds the basement shrine. He pauses, surprised, when he sees a light already in the chalice. No one should be up yet.

 

Pema looks up from her meditation, finding the strange masked man watching her, expression mute behind the black cloth he's worn as a face covering since coming to the island. 

"Oh. I - I'm sorry. I was just leaving."

She struggles to her feet, her back and ankles screaming at the effort. He doesn't hesitate, entering the shrine to offer her a hand, and then a shoulder to lean on as she gets her breath back. There is an ache in her feet as the blood returns to them.

"I didn't...I din't think anyone else comes to this one." She says when she has recovered. 

"Should not all gods be worshiped equally?" There is a quiet humor in his voice, tinged with a bit of curiosity. Well, it made sense. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be up, except, perhaps, someone who wanted some time alone. And of all the people on the island, in made _sense_ for Amon to wish for solitude, and Pema not to.

The Air matriarch stared thoughtfully at the other non-bender, then sighed. "Forgive me for keeping you from your meditations" and made to leave, turning only at the door, forcing herself to smile at the enigma. "I'm making tea in the lower kitchen. You're welcome to join me when you're done."

Surprised, Amon nodded once and then turned back to the small carved owl. Pema wondered what he was meditating on. Surely such a man had no need for the wisdom she so desperately sought.

 

/////

 

By the time she'd reached the kitchen her feet were once again protesting and her mind had stumbled back into the dark thoughts the meditation had kept at bay. Cleaning the kitchen was welcome work, and fixing the damage done by four unruly teenagers and three small children baking cookies was no easy task. By the time she set the tea kettle on, lighting the fire with tinder sparks, the sunrise had fully begun and any thought of Amon had left her mind.

Which is why the gloved hand brushing her tears away comes as such a shock, and she almost droped the kettle. He caught it before it showered them with boiling water, but the damage had been done. What had been a carefully constructed facade breaks, and she finds herself sobbing cushioned by arms that normally would have been her husbands. But now...

"I didn't...I didn't want this!" She whispers, feeling the baby kick and being reminded yet again of the inevitability of his or her abilities. "I didn't want to be responsible for all of this! _Its not my race_. Why is it my responsibility?"

The words tumble out, and she feels ashamed. She is _supposed_ to be the perfect mother, always there, always attentive, always light and encouraging and _gracious_. As Tenzin would say - "balanced". Balanced somewhere between authority figure and confidant, walking the line between the mistress of the house and warm hostess...all things that had seemed so easy until just a few months ago.

"But now there is a war, a war _you_ started, even if you won't finish it, and it will threaten my children. Tenzin is gone, and each time he leaves I fear he will never return. And I am so frightened of disappointing him, even while I wish so desperately for a single non-bender child. I am so...so _selfish_ , and yet I'm responsible for the rebirth of an entire _race_ , when I can't even keep up with my infants." 

"Would you rather they never experienced air-bending?"

The question brings her up short, and she looks up to find him staring in that strange way he has, looking either into the spirit world or the future, she's not sure which.

"I...I don't know. Their air-bending is part of them. It makes them happy, even as it takes them away from me. And they will never understand what its like, to be grounded and unable to touch the clouds." She touches her stomach, and the child within it, before looking up to face him.

"I had considered asking you to strip the his bending away. But...I can't. It brings them such joy. Can...can you even understand that?"

A pause, while the masked man considers. "I can understand, yes. And..." another pause, and his voice lowers, as if he has chosen to break character to confide in her. "You are not wrong, in your choice."

Her surprise must be obvious, and he turns away, fiddling with the teacup, before sighing and meeting her eyes. 

"Had you asked, I would have refused. As I always have, when benders ask me to take children's bending away. They should be offered the _choice_ , one day. Even if the end is the same...the choice matters."


End file.
